Justin had no idea what type of business it was back before. It was large enough to have been a factory or a warehouse, but currently all he wanted was a safe place to hole up until help came.
Jogging into the parking lot, he saw the shape of a semi’s trailer, sitting silently and gathering rust.
“That might work,” he muttered as he headed toward it.
The doors to the trailer were partially open. Slinging his M4, he unholstered his Glock and held his light with his left hand. Turning it on, he peered inside the trailer with the light. It was empty. Nodding to himself, he gently pulled open one of the doors a few inches, hoping the hinges wouldn’t squeak. He was about to holster his Glock when he felt rather than saw the furry object leaping toward him. It was fast, much faster than him. In only a microsecond he felt excruciating pain as the wolf clamped down on his right arm.
The Glock clambered to the asphalt and the wolf emitted a deep growl as it snapped his head back and forth in an effort to bring Justin down. Justin grunted in pain and struggled to remain on his feet as he dropped the light from his left hand and retrieved his second best friend, his Marine Corps issued bayonet from the scabbard on his left hip.
The wolf yelped in pain as Justin stabbed repeatedly into its torso. It wasn’t until the fourth stab before he felt its jaws loosen. He wrestled free of it just as another wolf leapt at him. Justin was ready this time and stabbed it in the neck in midflight. The wolf let out a short yelp of pain before falling to the asphalt beside his pal. Justin could not see them clearly. He heard some grunting and panting, so he maneuvered his M4 and shot toward the shapes with his left hand.
The grunting and panting stopped.
Justin dropped to the ground and felt around until he found his handgun and penlight. The Glock was fine. The penlight was broken.
“Damn,” he muttered.
He heard movement somewhere off to his right. Sensing that it was another wolf, he leapt into the trailer and tried closing the doors. It was a typical trailer for a semi, that is, the latches were on the outside. Justin pulled the doors closed, but one of them kept swinging open a couple of feet.
His head was pounding, and his arm hurt like hell, but he forced himself to think. A sudden thought came to him and he used one of his boot laces to tie the door closed. It wasn’t the most secure, but the doors were high enough off the ground and heavy enough that he did not think a wolf would be able to pull it open. A few zeds might be able to though, which meant he would not be getting any sleep tonight, not that he’d be able to sleep in the freezing cold.
He could not see the extent of the injuries to his arm, but he could feel his jacket sleeve soaked with blood. Justin wiggled his way out of his jacket, pulled a couple of ragged bandannas out of a cargo pocket and gently wrapped it around the injured arm. It wasn’t easy doing it with one hand, but if he kept from moving it around, he believed it would hold.
As the adrenalin wore off, he felt the coldness seeping in, and despite his first aid procedure, it felt like he was still bleeding. He gently touched the bandannas. They were damp. He put his jacket back on and thought briefly about exiting the trailer and trying to get into the building, but a short bark right outside let him know there were other wolves out there. He had no doubt they smelled the scent of his blood. They were not going to leave anytime soon.
All he could do now was hunker down and wait for someone to come find him.
Chapter 12 – Justin’s Arm
Justin tried in vain to will himself to ignore the cold, his pounding headache, the throbbing of his arm. He was failing. His arm injury prevented him from doing any kind of exercises to keep his metabolism going. If not for the injury, he’d do squats, pushups, anything to raise his metabolism and fight off the cold.
But he couldn’t. With each movement spasms of pain shot up through his arm and throughout his torso before ending in his head. His toes were numb. He had no idea how much he’d bled. A decent first aid kit was sitting somewhere in his overturned vehicle.
“And my silly ass forgot to bring it with me,” he muttered.
He did not, could not, allow himself to nod off. Instead, he slowly paced inside the trailer and willed his mind to think of other things. The memories of his past slowly came alive. His childhood was rotten, and it seemed as though he was destined for a life of rottenness until he found salvation in the Marine Corps. The Corps taught him almost everything that his parents had failed to teach him.
He absently started thinking about the memories of his life back in Tennessee. The zed epidemic had been raging for three years when he found himself at the Centers for Disease Control and questioning his role in the abduction and imprisonment of the two small Gunderson children, Frederick, and Macie. He and Ruth spent many nights talking about it.
They came to a decision. The plan was to surreptitiously prep a HUMVEE. When the time was right, they grabbed the children. It was intended to only be the four of them, but Grant Parsons discovered their plan and insisted on going with them. He was certain that Zach was going to kill him once they arrived in Nolensville, but there were no
